July 17 – Downriver
The Teva World Champs couldn’t have asked for a better finish. The downriver race, its multiple laps (5 for women and 6 for men) proved to be grueling and took its toll on the athletes. Each lap you could see them getting more tired. But in the end every one of the teams took on the challenge of the downriver and gave it their all. The downriver was watched closely by many shouting spectators throughout the course. The ability to watch the teams do multiple laps was a great crowd pleaser.
The women’s race had the Slovakian team out front but on the whitewater course they had a swimmer who swam into the flat water below which took them into last position in their heat of 7. They struggled and fought hard to get back but ended up taking 7th place overall. Japan however kept increasing their lead once they took control. They won the downriver with a time of 29.28:62. The Canadian women had a great run as they started in the slower ranked heat and took 4th place in the Downriver.
In the final heat of the men the start was huge and Brazil took the lead and kept it the whole way. However in the beginning the Czechs, USA and Japan battled each other for a while but they sorted it out with Japan coming in 2nd and the USA 3rd. The upset was New Zealand, in the previous heat they had a fast race and took 3rd overall.
With the downriver out of the way teams are celebrating and waiting for the prize giving of the downriver and overall results.
We will post the overall results later tonight.
